Tamara is a Toronto based Stage Manager, Director and Producer in primarily Theatre and Opera. Her work has taken her across Canada, from Toronto to Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton, and Halifax; to cities in the US such as San Francisco and New York; and across seas to Italy & Estonia. She has been ARC’s Managing Producer since 2018, and their Resident Stage Manager since 2014. She has also been the Resident SM of opera performance company Off Centre Music Salon since 2010.
Recent Stage Management credits include: Oil (ARC); Marjorie Prime (Coal Mine); Hell’s Fury (Soundstreams); The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare in the Ruff); Hook Up (Tapestry Opera); Flying Hearts Tour (Theatre Direct); The Glass Menagerie (Grand Theatre); La Bohème (Against the Grain); Dead Man Walking (Vancouver Opera); Birds of a Feather (Roseneath Theatre). Her most recent directing credit is AD’ing ARC’s last production of Oil, and the Co-Director of ARC’s Dissidents.
Jackie has been designing sets and costumes in over 200 productions for stage and screen. Her work can be seen across Canada and has toured internationally. In addition, she is a production designer and art director for film and television. Selected theatre design credits include: Sexy Laundry (Theatre Aquarius) Annie Mae’s Movement, The Place Between, Salt Baby, Almighty Voice and His Wife, Giiwedin, Tombs of the Vanishing Indian, From Thine Eyes, HUFF (NEPA), Antigone Insurgency, Someone is Going to Come, Talking Masks, Like the First Time, Charge of the Expormidable Moose, Ubu Mayor, Smyth/Williams, Music Music Life Death Music (One Little Goat), Gas Girls, Cake (New Harlem Productions), The Making Of St. Jerome (eastBOUND Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (TD Dream in High Park/Can Stage), Zadie’s Shoes, Lady Sunrise (Factory Theatre), Brown Balls, Mixie and the Halfbreeds (Fu-Gen), The Swearing Jar (Prairie Theatre Exchange), Dirty Butterfly (Bound to Create), Fish Eyes Trilogy (Nightswimming), Canada 300 (Watermark Theatre), Cannibal! the Musical (Starvox Entertainment), Twist Your Dickens (Second City Chicago/Toronto), Mini Me Makeover – Designer and Co-host (CBC Kids/Expect Theatre), Moment, Pomona, Dissidents, Human Animals, OIL (ARC Theatre), KISS (ARC/Theatre Smash/Can Stage), A Year with Frog and Toad (Manitoba Theatre for Young People), Cowboy Versus Samurai, 39 Steps, Oraltorio, Yellow Rabbit (Soulpepper), and The Komagata Maru Incident (Stratford Festival). Jackie was named in NOW magazine’s Top 10 Theatre Artists of 2009, nominated for the Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award in Costume Design, nominated for a Saskatoon Area Theatre (SAT) award, Winnipeg Theatre award (Evie), 2 Broadway World awards and has received 8 Dora nominations for outstanding set and costume design. Jackie has been a company member since 2014.
Paul Smith (he/they) is a Thursday-born performer, writer, and director from Stittsville, ON., based in Toronto, ON. Today, they are exploring where bridges can be made to connect and care for both new and late-generation artists, how Black and African cultures are two sides of the same coin, and how spirituality, identity, and myth can adapt narratives that center marginalized bodies into stories of reclamation, innovation, or protest. Recent projects of theirs include Anansi v. God(s) (Toronto Metropolitan University & Tarragon Theatre), The Gathering (Diaspora Dialogues & Tarragon Theatre), the Acting Cohort of TEPS (Factory Theatre), Bearbie (PlayersTO), Bush of Ghosts (BlueBird Theatre Collective), Rockabye (ARC Stage), and the Artist Mentorship Program (Black Theatre Workshop & the National Arts Centre). When not thinking about the symbiotic relationship between theatre and film, or moderating a talkback, Paul is learning to be patient with themself, and listening to Frank Ocean (on repeat). For more, find Paul here: